5 years. Or a lifetime. Or a few weeks ago.

Last week marked the five year anniversary of a lot of early Covid-19 milestones, particularly after the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

Here is what happened in my own little existence during that surreal, unmoored window of 2020.

March 10, 2020:  I meet a friend for dinner after work. There are rumblings of remote work, a weird unknown looming over everything and everyone.  Over our glasses of white wine and bowls of moules frites, we compare notes on news we've heard recently, agreeing how everything feels unsettled.        "But you know what will be great?" I say, confident. "Airfare prices will go way down. We should take a trip together. And Broadway tickets will be so cheap. We could go to a lot of shows." We set aside our chatter about this looming virus and instead talk about what theater we want to see, where we'd want to travel. After we've finished our dinner and leave the restaurant slightly tipsy, both of us planning aloud about a trip to Cape Town in May.

March 11, 2020: This is the day that things start to get real weird, real fast.  I go out to dinner with my cousin and his wife that evening, a night we now refer to as "the last supper."  The two of them were in town from Nebraska for college basketball tournaments.  While sitting together at our dinner table, his wife keeps getting updates about closings or cancelations or restricted access to events. It felt like we'd started the evening in relatively still "normal" times and by the time we hugged goodbye outside of the restaurant a few hours later, we were living in a different reality.

March 12, 2020: Broadway goes dark. Oh, I think to myself. Oh. Forget cheap theater tickets for there will be no theater at all. The Met announces it will close on March 13th. The MoMA and Brooklyn Museum too. Oh.

March 13, 2020: Friday the 13th.  This becomes, unknowingly, the last day in which I was a regular daily commuter. (5 years later I am still not a regular commuter anymore.) Typically, Fridays were always quieter in the office than other weekdays but the core group of us who all sat near one another went in that day, anxious about the fact that we might not see one another or be in our office space for at least two whole weeks.  Four of us walked to get lunch outside of the office, at a falafel place a few blocks down the street.  As we ate our wraps, we talked about what our working from home situation would look like, (how would we do it?!) what we'd do to pass the time for the two weeks needed to flatten the curve. (lots of closet cleaning suggestions, spring purging and tv binging.) We finished the work day and I took the train home, walking by the library to return a book. There, on the front door of my local branch, are taped signs - closed until further notice.  The off-hours drop bin is locked up tight.  I head back to my apartment, immediately worried about the late fees I'll incur if the doors remain shut for weeks.

March 14, 2020: I don't know it yet, but late morning I head to the last yoga class I will take in person for months. Months earlier a friend from Boston had planned to come visit for the weekend; we had tickets to attend a concert together. Despite the concert being canceled, she decides she'd still like to visit anyway. Instead of taking Amtrak, she decides to drive - less risk. It is a mild spring afternoon; we decide to walk through Central Park together, people watching.  The park is busy - rollerbladers, children running, musician busking. We pass a chalk mural telling us "Brighter days are ahead."  Onward she and I walk to The Plaza Hotel. Deciding we'd like a break, we step inside and order glasses of champagne and share a bowl of peanuts from the hotel bar. (This still marvels both of us; that as New York City was slowly grinding to a halt we found a spot - at The Plaza no less! - with a communal nut bowl.) Fortified, we take the subway further downtown to the restaurant where I had made us a dinner reservation weeks prior.  By this time, New York City restaurants have been ordered to operate at 50% of their usual capacity. This restaurant is technically following the order but in the sense that they have shuttered the back half of the restaurant and have all of the patrons at the front...so 50% of space all right. My friend and I eat within inches of strangers on either side of us. Both of us take sips of each other's cocktails and share bites of our dinners.  When we leave the restaurant the streets are extremely quiet and desolate for a Saturday night in The Village, for Manhattan in general.  Eerie is the only word for it.  "It feels like we're bracing for a snowstorm," I tell my friend.  We agree we should probably skip the subway and just hail a cab home instead.

March 15, 2020: It is dawning on me that I am going to need to leave town until this "all blows over" and we have successfully flattened the curve. My friend offers to drive me to New Jersey before she heads back to Boston. I thank her but decline; I'm not ready to leave yet. She and I head to brunch down the street before she drives back to Massachusetts. The spot we dine in is usually packed to the gills on a Sunday morning with a hour long wait for a table. Instead, we are seated immediately and the place is virtually empty. I use a gift card to pay for our breakfast but my friend and I leave a generous tip.  The waiter thanks us and we tell him we imagine it'll be a quiet two weeks ahead for his line of work. (So many times my friend and I have wonder aloud what happened to that waiter.)  After my friend departs, I start to get myself packed up and organized for a departure myself. My plan is this - I'll go to my Dad's in NJ for a week and then fly down to my Mother's for another couple of weeks.  I'm thinking only in weeks, definitely not months and certainly not years. As I pack, I remember thinking to myself -  I should throw in an outfit for Easter.  Not because I thought we'd still be in a pandemic by Easter...but because, I figured, I'd already be down with my Mom and I could just stay through the holiday before returning home.  After I'm packed up, I take myself on a walk through Central Park. It's gorgeous out. The sun is shining, winter is giving up its fight and spring is coming.  The park is ABUZZ with people.  Every single person I pass is talking about the pandemic, either in groups or on their phones. I overhear the term "social distancing" for the first time as I eavesdrop on a man who ran into some friends in the park. I overhear another woman on her phone: "Are you kidding? There's no way I can just stay in my apartment all day. Do you know how small it is? I'll lose my mind!" (I also often wonder what became of her.)  I walk to The Met despite its recent closure. I sit on the iconic steps, soak in the sun's rays, mystified by what exactly is happening.

March 16, 2020: It is my very first day of remote work. I log into my laptop briefly in the morning after I make my coffee, but now - now - there feels like a real sense of urgency to get the hell of of this island. I start to panic about them shutting down trains or ferries to get over to New Jersey and so I log off just as quickly as I logged on, ready to take the subway to Penn Station and catch NJ Transit down to my father's house.  Before I leave, I slip my April rent check under my landlady's apartment door and leave her a bouquet of tulips that I'd had in my house.  They're too fresh to throw away, yet I know they'll be wilted and long dead when I return.

I do not know it yet - how could I possibly know it? But I won't return to New York City until July 13, 2020. Almost exactly 4 months gone.  And a lifetime.